


One Good Reason

by nicotinedragon



Category: Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5292689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicotinedragon/pseuds/nicotinedragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Internationale/Decker. UST. Internationale discuss politics with Decker while she reevaluates their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When I first met Decker in person, I was pretty unsurprised. He came off as a corporate sleaze whose avarice had finally caught up with him. I felt a twinge of vindication, to be honest. One thing about corporate people I’ve noticed over the years is a distinct bitterness, a distrust, and unashamed disgust of idealism.  Decker, raised in that system, was no different.

“Eight years?” Prism leans back. We were fresh from a mission; we were solid together when she had her holo mesh and I took the network siphon. She wanted to celebrate by seeing the city before we left for another mission. We were sipping bubble tea in a café.

“Eight years.” I reply, sipping my drink.

“So…what’s wrong?”

I almost choke on my drink, “’What’s wrong’!?” 

I wipe my mouth, “What are you talking about?”

Even I had heard of Brian Decker in my insurgent years. The message was simple; stay out of the west coast. Those missions were tough, to say the least. Imagine my surprise when he vanished one day. Like he never existed. Just gone.

“I mean…eight years? People get married a lot sooner than that.”

“Married?!” I laugh, he explicitly told me he wasn’t going through with that again, “It’s not like we’ve been dating for eight years!”

“Well, no, but…you two…”

With Decker gone, west coast missions were as easy as any other. I wrote it off as the same cut-throat rivalry endemic to capitalism, where the individual would kill their own mother for a chance to get ahead. Decker’s luck had probably just run out and K&O would suffer from the unchained ambition of someone unable to advance on their own merits.

It did.  K&O suffered terribly. Imagine my surprise when I finally met him face-to-face. I was a little disappointed. He was hungover.

“Us two….?” Finish your thought, Prism.

“Just…go together, you know?”

“We’re just good friends.”

Prism folds her arms and leans back, giving me this look.

My mouth pops open, “We’re just friends.”

“You sure?”

“Just friends.” I play with my glass. Eight years? Well, we knew each other for eight years, but we weren’t friends until later.

“Just…not into him?”

“Not like that, no. It’d be weird at this point.”

“Not necessarily. Wasn’t he married?”

“Divorced. Bad one.”

Prism hissed and pointed at me, “Maybe that’s why. Was it really bad?”

Maybe that’s why, what?

“She got everything.” Funny, he never spoke poorly of her. He didn’t speak of her at all, but acted like the divorce was all his fault.

She winced again, “I can see how that’d take you out of the dating scene for a while. I heard he had to seriously clean up his act.”  

Most of the others don’t like Decker. He has a…difficult…attitude. He always expects the worst. What kind of worst? Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s the worst. He says he’s never disappointed when things go bad and he’s pleasantly surprised when things go well. It must be hard to go from somebody that has everything to somebody that has nothing.

I smile and lean in, “And you want me to date that guy. You’re a real pal, you know that?”

He gave up a lot of his body for the corporations and they repaid him by firing him. Augmentations make him uncomfortable, but he got them to keep going. They didn’t even give him the chance at rehabilitation. When he wasn’t useful to them anymore, he was tossed aside.

She tilts her head and gives me a skeptical smile, “He’s really only nice to you, you know.”

I think about that for a lot longer than I really should.

 

* * *

 

Capitalism is heartless. It doesn’t allow even one mistake to go unpunished. I don’t blame him for having a drinking problem. I’ve tried to explain this over the years, but he usually just tells me that it would be the same under communism.

“People are generally pretty terrible under any system. Why else would we invent weapons?” He told me once.

It’s hard to explain compassion and mercy with someone that’s never known it.

At least he humored me. Most of the other agents didn’t. Most of them seemed to be proud to be flippantly cruel. Frankly, his nasty attitude gave me hope. The fact he was disgusted at his former allies told me he could listen to reason.

We meet again after a few weeks of working separately in Sophia. We’re going to hit K&O again tomorrow.

I find him outside smoking, rather than at the bar, sometime in the early afternoon. He knows I worry. It’s cold outside and the wind is bitter. We hug each other tight, looking like the couple we’re supposed to pretend we are. I try to get a feel for how thin he is; if he’s on a bender, he’s not eating. I feel for ribs through his coat. I breathe deep, trying to smell alcohol or ketoacidosis on his breath. I feel his hands on my back for shakes or an unsteady gait. Nothing. He’s been good.

He hates that I do this, but an addiction like this has nothing to do with willpower.

I can’t meet his eyes when we pull away. I don’t think he looks at me, either. He knows he can’t be trusted, that I have to check. He knows I do it because I care. He knows I won’t tell Central if he falls off, but he also knows I might tell Sharp or Xu if it’s bad enough. I’d have to, if it gets bad; they have the medical expertise to help.

Willpower can’t hold a candle to your body giving out under you.

We hold hands all the way up to the room. His hands are cold from being outside, but it’s nice. Familiar and safe. His face hardens as we pass the bar and we squeeze our hands a little tighter. In the middle of the day, only the night owls and dedicated alcoholics are there. I don’t partake in the opiate of the masses, but I try to will what strength I have into him through our hands.

As soon as we’re both inside the room, he heads into the bathroom to shower. He goes first for a very good reason because in the meantime, I take all the liquor and beer bottles out of the minibar and stash them. I’ll put them back later, since I don’t want to pay for liquor I’m not drinking. As long as he doesn’t see it, it won’t tempt him.

It’s the little things. I’m tempted to check his luggage, but I don’t. I can’t go that far. If he smelled like booze, it’d be different. I can’t do that to him. I have to show at least a little trust. He was sneaking liquor on missions. He has a flask. If he really wanted to sneak it, he could. You can’t trust addicts, no matter who they are.

His trilby stands watch; he’ll know if I move it.

I once made the mistake of calling it a fedora. My punishment was a long-winded lecture on fedoras, trilbies, bowlers, and homburgs. I call it a punishment, but I didn’t mind. I’ll talk about anything that could take his mind off the constant pain he’s in. I think it messes with his head.

How do daemons have a taste, anyway?

I finally decide to give him the benefit of the doubt and sit at the desk to read _The Motorcycle Diaries_. He comes out fully dressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants, drying his hair in with a tower. There’s still a bit of shaving cream on his face, “You know, when I was kid, my mom got me ‘Animal Farm’ for Christmas. She thought it was a kids’ book because it had talking animals.”

“Oh my god!” I start laughing. If that horrible rag was his first introduction to communism…sometimes all you can do is laugh. The only thing I got out of that book was that pigs weren’t to be trusted. I already knew that.

He chuckles, “When Boxer died I screamed and cried for days.”

“The truth comes out!” I joke, “Why you became a capitalist. It doesn’t have to be like that, you know.”

“I’ll meet you halfway and go either with Titoism or democratic socialism.” He tells me, sitting on the bed.

This is new. Nobody ever offers discourse. They just shut me down.

“Communism isn’t about half-measures.” I motion to my face.

“That’s why it failed. It didn’t adapt.” He smiles at me and wipes the shaving cream off.

“Ideas don’t fail. We have the technology to make it work this time!”

“You can’t control need and demand; you can only respond to it. Capitalism does that very well.”

Just because capitalism does one thing better doesn’t make the entire system better. He should know the failings of capitalism very intimately, but I think he just doesn’t believe there’s a better way.

“You don’t need to account for what will happen in the future, you need to act in the best interest of everyone, not just yourself. The price of leadership is self-interest.”

“Then nobody would want to do it. Who wants to be a leader for something other than themselves? Leadership is all about the perks.”

No, Decker. Just…no.

“You have it backwards. Leaders sacrifice themselves for us. Not the other way around. Leaders get more, yeah, but it comes at a cost. It’s anthropological.”

“Anthropological, huh?”

“Leaders get first choice of meat and first choice of mate, but are expected to sacrifice their self-interest for the group if the need arises. That’s how it works.”

He gives me this look that says, “You’re wrong, but I don’t want to argue with you.”

Is it weird that I want him to argue with me? I want to have this conversation. If he argues with me, it means he’s listening. Nobody ever listens to me about this. I keep going, “That’s why you get so angry when some corporate fat cat sacrifices his workers to benefit himself. He violated a deep-seated social contract. If you won’t give up the perks of authority when it counts and sacrifice yourself for the good of the group, you might be an authority but you’ll never be a leader.”

I sit down on the bed beside him. It wasn’t strange for us to share a bed, always apart of course. A couple getting two beds would look suspicious.

It’s not like we were changing in front of each other or something.

He turns the TV on and goes looking for something to watch, “Tito. Ever heard of him?”

“Joesf Broz Tito? Of course.”

“He had a system that worked pretty good, Titoism, you know. It failed when he died and nationalism got everyone wanting to kill each other. Maybe without the nationalistic aspect, it would have worked.”

“Maybe,” I considered.

Communism isn’t just one thing; it comes in a myriad of types. Decker’s talking about a mixed system used in Yugoslavia from about the end of the second world war and the end of the twentieth century.

I get in the shower, thinking of what he said. Not what he actually said, but the fact he said it. Nobody wanted to discuss politics with me but him.

Why? I don’t think he’s starting to lean to the left, though I wished he would. It’s lonely being the only person that sees the insanity that got us into this mess. Most of the others were too self-absorbed to care about others. Decker was usually a firm republican capitalist. He was further into vices of capitalism than anybody. When we first met, I knew he’d return to the corporate world in a heartbeat if they’d just take him back.

He stayed with Invisible because we were the only ones that would take him.  It took me a long time to trust him.

He once mentioned that comradery was strong in the security world; even between the corporations. Nobody went to war for patriotism, nationalism, racism, religion, or resources. They didn’t go for the reasons they were sent; they went to protect the people to the right and to the left of them. Those kinds of statements make me think he can be convinced.

In the hot shower, scrubbing, I’m suddenly well aware that he’s exactly one door over. I push the thought out of my head and focus on the mission we have tomorrow.

I walk out of the shower in my favorite shirt and pajama pants. My hair’s still wet and sticking to my head. I feel his eyes on me as I wall across the TV.

“What’s on?”

_“The Maltese Falcon.”_

We watch quietly together.

Out of the blue, in the middle of the movie, he says, “Titoism combines the best of capitalism and communism, you know. Democratic socialism worked for a long time, too.” 

I’m so amazed at that I say something stupid, “What about poor Boxer?”

He replies by placing his cold feet against my thighs. I’m still rather warm from the shower, so the shock causes me to scream and jump. He laughs uproariously.

 _“Pendejo!”_ I squeal, grabbing the pillow behind me and hitting him with it. He keeps on laughing, blocking with his forearm. I’m laughing with him and soon I stop hitting him. I lie down beside him. We’re giggling like children while we catch our breath.

We’re watching each other; the faint rosacea on his cheeks and nose was slightly redder than usual. But he hadn’t had anything to drink recently. I checked.  

Decker and Sam Spade speak in unison, “You’re a good man, sister.”

He brushes my wet hair out of my face and now my face is as red as his. I have trouble breathing.

He turns to lay flat on his back and turn off the TV, “Let’s get some sleep.”

There’s nothing weird about sharing a bed with someone.

“But seriously,” I say, “Titoism? You think that’d work?”

“He was a benevolent dictator that worked for the good of his people. That’s the kind of leader you want, right? Most people would abuse the perks of being in charge, you know.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah…I guess I did. I mean, I tried not to screw anybody over, but…”

“But…?”

“…After a while you forget who put you there, in that position, and people you don’t see often, the little guy, stops…being a person to you. They’re just assets. Maybe that’s why we’re all so fucked up and the system has nothing to do with it.”

I take his hand and squeeze it, “Sounds lonely.”

“It gets to you after a while.” He admits, “All the same executives living these…lives. I was working fifteen-hour days, making money for other people. I needed to take the edge off, get rid of the pain. My wife never saw me, but I don’t think she minded too much toward the end.”

“You never speak ill of her.”

“I can’t blame her.

“Blame her for what?”

“She told me I had to choose. Nice idea, but we both knew she was leaving. She’d already found somebody new.  I don’t think she stopped caring, but…you can’t live with someone like me, you know?”

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job. Eight years on and we still get along.”

He goes quiet.

I start to panic.

“I’m going for a smoke.” He gets up and goes outside, to the balcony.

I’m having trouble breathing. I think I said too much or said something I didn’t mean. There’s nothing weird about sharing a bed with someone, until I went and made it weird.  

Dammit, Prism put ideas in my head. What’s wrong with the way things are now?

I look over at him. He’s standing on the balcony, staring out over the city, smoking slowly. He inhales, holds the smoke for a solid ten seconds, and exhales a fine white cloud into the sky. I can’t read his face with his back to me, but nothing suggests he’s upset. He leans on the rail, crossing and uncrossing his feet.

It isn’t until my lungs start to burn that I realize I’m holding my breath. I force myself to exhale and breathe. The world opens back up.

He comes back in, bringing a thick smell of cigarettes with him. It rolls in with the cold and hits me in the face. He climbs into bed and rolls onto his side, facing away from me.

What the hell do I say?

He says, “The money was nothing more than a huge distraction from the pain.”

“Pain of what?”

“The rat race. Staying ahead of people I didn’t care about, trying to impress people I hated. I’ve always been an addict. I was addicted to success first, but then booze brought the rush easier, so I switched to that. I threw great parties; everyone likes that vintage, Fitzgerald theme when you don’t have to think about the fact it was called the gilded-age.”

“Gilded. Superficial.”

The absolute worst of capitalism.

“Just a façade. Real easy to knock down.”

Without thinking, I threw an arm around him and squeezed. He coughs loudly and laughs shakily and squeezes my hand. He turns his head toward me, “It’s old news, doll face. I got a new life, now.”

It’s been a long time since I hugged anybody like I meant it. I’m not checking him for anything; this is a real hug. He could use something real.

He eventually says, “You want to stay the big spoon or what?”

“You’ll have to turn around for me to be the little spoon.”

He doesn’t move for a long second. My heart starts to race. He turns around and so do I. His chest is against my back and he has one arm around my waist.  He radiates heat like a furnace. I had felt at home with Decker for years. Bitter, stalwart, pessimistic, and cynical, he was nevertheless absolutely dependable. A solid foundation. We’d slept in the same beds for years.

And, for no reason whatsoever, for the first time ever, the foundation feels shaky. Shifting.

For the first time in years, I have butterflies.


	2. Chapter 2

Decker leans against the wall of the transport pad, trying to hide the synthetic muscle and lack of blood from me. The bone looks real, sawed clean so I can see the marrow and metal core. He cradles his severed arm like a child, the hand over his heart. He used the belt from his coat to tie off the stump at the armpit as if he still has blood flowing through the arm. Does he?

How many augments _does_ he have? He’s never given me a straight answer.

“Heh,” he smiles through the pain, “I can see why they hid that dame on the night shift.”

You just can’t account for crazy.

There was one guard on duty that night. They must have had to scramble the others for something else.

They left the craziest one. With a cauterizing bone saw.

We accomplished the mission, but it was close. Especially for Decker. That guard was either emotionally disturbed, really and truly dedicated to K&O, or just in a really bad mood because she really had it out for us.

Central comes over the radio, “I’ve already scrambled Sharp to take a look at it. Go to him immediately. We’ll debrief later.”

“Roger, ma’am.” I reply. Decker doesn’t say anything. He just stares down at the floor in shame. He can’t look at me.

“Having augments doesn’t make you less of a person, Brian.” I say gently. He looks at me with his eyes. I cover my mouth.

“S-Sorry, Decker. It slipped.”

He shrugs and goes back to staring at the floor.

Central is waiting for us outside of the transport. She walks with us down the long hall to where Sharp is waiting.

“I can’t believe you got Sharp for this.” Decker grumbles. He’s white as a sheet. You’d think that since they both suffer from addiction and body dysphoria, Sharp and Decker would get along great. They don’t.

“He’s the best bet to fixing or replacing that arm of yours.” Central replies, “I thought it was natural.”

The look she gives says, “You should have told me about the extent of your augments.”

He’s doing his best to hide the extent of his injuries from me. I can see the black nanofiber through his fingers. He really hates augmentations.

He grumbles, “Xu would have been better.”

“He has better bedside manner,” Central admits, “but I doubt he could do what Sharp does as efficiently. I thought you had two arms.”

“I _do_ have two arms.” He snaps and immediately regret it. Central lets it slide. She knows how he feels about this.

Sharp had set up a lab for himself in the headquarters. He’s already prepped the lab for surgery. He had removed his coat in favor of a white one.

He wastes no time, “Let me see it.”

He motions for his arm. With some hesitation, Decker hands it over. Sharp replaces Decker’s self-belt tourniquet for a real one, then removes the sleeves on the severed arm to examine exactly what he has to work with. A curious expression crosses his face as he analyzes the severed stump to see exactly how to reattach everything. The artificial muscle fiber sways in the nearly nonexistent breeze. The skin looks like seared pork.

“I’ve never seen an augmentation quite like this….Why bother with hair?” He asks. Decker hisses at the word ‘augmentation’.

“So it looks more natural. And even.”

Sharp’s lip twitches in disgust.

Central folds her arms, “Can it be reattached?”

“I’ve dealt with more complex augments,” he replies. He’s holding the arm by the elbow, staring at the cauterized wound carefully. He gently touches where the skin had burnt. His face goes from curious to surprise.

“What kind of…?” He sets the arm on the table and laces his fingers with the severed arm. He checks the index carefully, “This has fingerprints.”

“Of course it does.” Decker replies. Is he smiling?

“Don’t tell me you need to recreate your fingerprints for biometrics or some nonsense.”

Even Decker wouldn’t go through the trouble of recreating fingerprints just to use old encryption methods.

“I don’t.”

Sharp gives him this condescending glare. He grabs the wrist of the arm and squeezes the fingers into a fist. The knuckles crack and had Sharp a natural face, the blood would have drained out of it. Instead he just freezes, wide-eyed.

“That’s cartilage.”

“Yup.” Decker has this mischievous smile.

“There are _bones_ in this.”

“You got it.”

“This hand is _natural.”_ He spits.

“Same one I was born with.”

Sharp practically throws my arm on the table in disgust, pulling his hands away, “That’s _human skin_.”

It’s a cruel joke, but Decker laughs anyway.

“Decker,” I say, “that’s not funny; that’s mean.”

Sharp takes a lighter out of his pocket and runs his hands over the fire to sterilize them, then he puts on gloves. He looks like he wants to take a shower.

“How much of that is natural?” Sharp asks, having already recovered.

“…Most of it.” Decker probably knows the exact percent to the hundredths place.

“Why not just replace the entire arm?”

Decker gives him this incredulous look, then looks away, “You wouldn’t understand.”

Sharp’s body dysphoria lessens with each augment. Decker’s gets worse. I think they dislike each other because they _almost_ understand each other.

Sharp palpates to see where the artificial parts end and Decker begins, “My compliments to your surgeon. Minimal scarring. I can hardly tell you _stretched your natural skin over an augmentation.”_

Decker cracks this cruel smile, “The word you are looking for is ‘Auto-donated skin-graft’. And what can I say? The wifey didn’t like the feel of synthetic.”

I punch the arm still attached to his shoulder.

“Decker.” Central admonishes him.

Sharp is still feeling the extent of the damage, “The nanofiber muscle and surgical bone replacement took the brunt of the damage, it’ll have to be replaced. The nerves are irreparable.”

Central frowns, “Can it be saved?”

“If I replace what’s left of the organic bicep, tricep, a few more centimeters of bone, and run artificial neurons to replace the nerves, I should be able to reattach it very easily without loss of dexterity or strength.”

Central says, “Get a move on, then.”

Decker protectively puts his hand over my stump, glaring. He’s sweating through his shirt.

“Use grafts,” he orders.

“Decker.” Sharp snaps, “Be reasonable. You will be without an arm for weeks if we wait to clone enough muscle, skin, and nerve to replace what you’ve already lost. Your half-made abomination of an arm will not last six hours without blood. The cells are dying as we speak.”

“Take what you need from somewhere else.” Decker’s voice is low and hard. He’s not budging.

Sharp grasps the arm to show Decker the fingers, “Take it from where? Do you see how they’re turning blue? That is the cells dying. The blood is coagulating in the veins and muscle. The longer you stall, the more I will have to replace.”

“Decker.” Central says sternly. Decker stays quiet with this feral look on his face. I swear he’s about to grab his arm back and beat Sharp with it. He’s feeling attacked and all it does is make him dig his heels in more.

He growls, “Don’t replace anything you don’t have to. I mean it.”

I’m doing my best to calm him down, “You really have no choice.”

I rub his back and he shakes me off, still staring hard into Sharp’s eyes. His eyes are as dark and shiny as coal.

Sharp closes his eyes and takes on the tone of an exasperated parent talking to a child, “I will save as much meat and bone as possible. Do not forget I could incinerate this and force you to take a new prosthetic. It would be easier for me to make an entirely new arm. Meet me half-way.”

Sharp opens his eyes, “Please.”

Sharp has little incentive to save what meat Decker has left in that arm, except maybe to save on spare parts he could use on himself. I’m not sure why he’s even entertaining the idea of saving flesh when augmentation would be more useful.

I want to think it’s because Decker’s stubbornness is borne from body dysphoria and Sharp can relate. The instinct to join tribes out of similarity is just as strong in Sharp as it is in any human; even psychopaths and introverts find complete isolation torture. They don’t like it, but they both know it. In this instant, they’re in the same tribe. And people in tribes cooperate with each other.

Central puts her hand on Decker’s shoulder, “It’s not as much as it sounds. You won’t even notice.”

Yes, he will. Decker sighs, “Fine.”

Satisfied, Sharp readies his tools.

Central leaves without another word. Tough love. She can’t afford to have him out of the fight, but she knows how he feels about augmentations.

Decker’s pride and sense of self is wounded, so he tries picking a fight to maintain dignity, “Do you keep track of all your sins against nature?”

I say, “Decker, it’s fine.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Sharp walks to a drawer and pulls out a leather-bound book, “in a journal I made myself.”

He hands the book to Decker, who sets it on his lap and thumbs through it.

“I made it out of human skin.”

Decker turns white and drops it. I feel sick to my stomach. Sharp catches it before it falls and puts it back in his drawer, “Relax. It’s my skin.”

We both give him a look, so he shrugs and goes back to work, “And now we’re even.”

“That’s fucking demented, Sharp.” Decker says.

“It’s my skin; I’ll do what I want with it.”

“That’s serial killer territory.”

I ask, “It’s…not really made out of your skin, is it?”

I’m tempted to ask what he did with the rest of his body, but I don’t want to know the answer.

Sharp smiles this eerie smile at us before returning to his work, “You’ve been under my knife before, and with the nature of our missions, you should expect to be under it again. Do you still not trust that I won’t do anything undesirable should you find yourself unconscious in my care?”

I don’t like the way Sharp is looking at his scalpels.

“No.”

Sharp wipes the severed arm down with alcohol, “You should. I have done nothing to abuse your trust. I will not do anything you do not want me to do while you are unconscious. We are on the same team.”

Decker looks up at him with his eyes.

“I need the same kind of trust from you.” Sharp has the decency to put a screen between Decker and the operating table so that he doesn’t have to see what Sharp’s doing with the arm. He can still see Sharp’s arms move as he works, though.

“Your chemical dependence and transhuman phobia leads me to believe that I cannot trust you in the _rare_ event _I_ must depend on _you_.”

Decker doesn’t take the bait, “I’m not afraid of transhumans.”

Sharp looks at him, “Let me clarify: you’re afraid of becoming one.”

It takes Decker a moment to speak, “I’m not about to fuck you over if that’s what you’re afraid of. I do my job.”

“Then do not argue with me when I must do mine. I am well aware of your wishes to preserve as much of your frail form as possible. I will honor your wishes.”

“Not all of us want to be erased.”

Sharp’s eyes go wide for a second before he corrects himself. He looks over at Decker curiously, “Erased? With exception to a few immune cells, your body replaces itself roughly every seven years, cell by cell. Your essential self, so to speak, also changes as you learn new information and adapt to your environment. In the face of natural and inevitable change, the ‘self’ you are trying to preserve is an illusion. That illusion will not be broken by any changes I make to preserve this limb, or any other surgery I may perform on you.”

“Where’s the fucking line, then?”

“What line?”

“How much gets replaced until you’re not you anymore?”

Sharp actually smiles, “What. Line? There are no hard lines in evolution, just gradual change. I’ve just decided to take control of the process. You would be wise to do the same.”

I think Decker is about to faint. His fingernails dig into his stump. I reach over and peel his fingers back. He’s broken skin. I grab his hand and he laces our fingers. He squeezes and I try to keep him steady.

Sharp doesn’t care about humans, but sometimes I think he likes watching Decker squirm. I think he finds augments on him to be some sort of small victory in the battle of ideology they fought, “Funny, I don’t smell ethanol in the blood.”

“I’ve _been good.”_ Decker snaps. He’s shaking and grinding is teeth as if he can feel what Sharp’s doing with the arm.

“I’m proactive about staying alive. You only seem to be proactive when it comes to your death.”

“You call that-” -Decker angrily gestures to Sharp- “-a life?!”

“Do we have to be here for this?” I ask. Decker’s skin is cold and clammy.

“No. I’ll be done in two hours, then I’ll need him back to reattach the prosthetic.”

Decker rips away from me and by the time I look, he’s already gone.

I follow him and catch up.

“Brian!” I grab his remaining elbow.

“He’s going to replace the whole fucking thing, I know it.” His eyes are wide and glassy. He won’t stop fidgeting. He steps outside and expertly opens his cigarette case and puts one in his mouth with one arm. He lights it.

“He has no reason to.”

“It’s Sharp.”

“He has no reason to trick you.”

“Except to make more freaks like him.”

“It’s not his augmentations that make him like that, Brian.” I murmur.

“If he tries to trick me, I’ll know.”

“I don’t think he’s going to want to use any more of his spare parts on you than he needs to get Central off his back. He’s doing this for her, not you.”

“It’s _Sharp_. He’d like to make me more like him.”

“He doesn’t care enough about you to do that. He’s just fixing your arm because you’re coworkers.” In the philosophical battle they fight, Decker is the one that’s consistently losing.

I hug his arm and lay my head on his shoulder. He’s shaking badly. I sit him down on the bench beside the cigarette can and lean on him. He fidgets and rocks with wide eyes.

I start, “How much of you is…?”

He snaps, “Too damned much.”

I pull him into a hug and he hugs me back. He presses his face into my hair and rubs my back with his one remaining arm. He’s shaking and his back is damp. He really does have a phobia.

“It’s going to be okay, okay?” His breathing slows gradually, from a frantic pant to slow, deep breathing. His heart is still pounding against my chest.

He inhales. Two. Three. He exhales. Two Three. He inhales….

I squeeze him tight to my chest, trying to massage his tortured back into relaxing. He finishes his cigarette and lights a new one.

His heart is still racing. The astringent smell of burnt nanofibers and sickly sweet smell of cooked human skin fades slowly into the cigarette smoke and aftershave as I hold him close. The smell of his fear cuts through it all like a blade.

Just as I’m getting used to the silence, he says, “…It’s completely ridiculous. I’m just freaking out.”

And he plants a kiss on my head, soft and gentle. My heart is a bird trying to escape its cage, flapping against my ribs.

He pulls away, realizing what he did, “S-Sorry….”

My hands grab him back. He freezes. The shivering gets worse.

“Maria?”

My hands move up his chest to his neck and stop at his jawline. I finally look at his stunned face, burning brightly in my hands, “This is the only part that really matters. No matter what else gets replaced, it’s still you in there. As long as it’s still you, that’s all that matters.”

I pull him down and he lets me. I plant my lips gently on his and he pulls me close and to return it, chaste but warm. I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze. I feel the blood rushing through me and making my limbs buzz. I’ve had relations with men before, but this…this is different. He’s gentle and sweet and nervous.

We take a breath and kiss a little deeper. His mouth is bitter and smokey, but I don’t mind. He hesitates and I panic in every little anticipation before his lips and tongue touch mine.

I won’t take point on this, not this time. I will later, now that I know. 

We pull away to look at each other, green eyes to brown, all tenderness and desire and fear rolled up into one.

Decker stammers, “W-wow…”

I giggle nervously.

Sharp is in the doorway, “Whenever you’re ready.”

We practically push each other away, occupying opposite ends of the bench.

Decker demands, “How long have you been standing there?!”

He’s really blushing, now. I hug myself tight.

“Thirty-two seconds.”

Decker throws his arm out, “Why didn’t you say something?!”

“I didn’t want to interrupt. You looked busy.”

The two of us stare at him in shock and embarrassment.

Sharp looks away, unconcerned, “I was wondering how long it would take for you two to finally attempt to breed.”

Leave it to Sharp to make anything sound unappealing.

“Really?!” I ask. Was there a bet going around or something? I really thought I was professional at work.

“No.” It’s really hard to tell when he’s joking.

“Fucking…!” Decker struggles to find words.

I ask nicely, “Can you please keep this between us?”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“I really don’t care what any of you do when it doesn’t concern me. Come with me, Decker. I only have a few hours before I have to replace your fingers. Those are difficult to make and you’re honestly not worth it.”

“Love you too, Sharp.”

They leave me there in early morning, bathed in the clean dawn light.

Everything’s changed. No more pretending.

Now what?


	3. Chapter 3

 

When I was a scout, I didn’t have many fulfilling relationships; just ones out of proximity because I could have been dead at any time.

When I was an insurgent, I didn’t have relationships at all; I was too busy fighting against the corps to even think about that.

And then I met Decker. Not the kind of guy I’d take home to meet my parents, but not for the usual reasons.

He was hungover on our first mission. The fact that Central didn’t do anything about it left quite the impression on me. He did the job sallow-skinned, tight-lipped, and in a terrible mood. Immediately after we teleported back to the jet, he puked in the lavatory and passed out in the chair with his hat on his face. I had to fly us back; I doubt he was okay to fly anybody anywhere.

One hell of a first impression.

The next few missions were better. He apologized, said he was working on it, and he’d try to do better. He did. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, but at least he wasn’t stumbling and slurring. He was a corporate sleaze with a drinking problem. If there were a spy in the ranks, he couldn’t be it just because of how obvious it would be.

The first time I tried to talk about what we were fighting for, he shut me out like the others.

“Communism has been tried; millions died.” He told me. Based on how he was dressed, I should have expected a history buff.

“That wasn’t real communism.” I said.

“Communism has been tried; millions died. Capitalism is heartless, but at least it’s fair.”

“You honestly think we have a fair shake against some corporate fat cat’s son?”

“…No.”

“Exactly. Everyone says capitalism keeps a level playing field, but why are we playing at all? Life shouldn’t be a competition where those most in need die to feed people that have everything. We’re human beings. And human beings need to work together.”

“This isn’t capitalism. It’s a plutocracy.”

“That’s the end state of capitalism. Without fail.”

The first time I saw him smile, he was mocking me, “You can say the same for communism. The party heads are the ones that end up with everything, exploiting the worker. It all comes out the same in the end. People are all the same; nobody thinks they’re evil, they just are.”

Yeah, it took a while.

 

* * *

 

 

We don’t partner up for what feels like a long time. In private, fresh from a mission, I ask Sharp if he told anybody about that…moment I had with Decker. He said he hadn’t, offended. I’m inclined to believe him; what would Sharp gain from telling Central about us? Would she even care? I doubt it.

When Decker and I met again, in Berlin, things were different

Shalem sends me a warning right before I meet Decker at the airport, “He’s fallen off. Badly. Go easy on him.”

My throat locks and a bolt of lightning pierces my heart. Sympathetic pain crawls up my back and my arms. My stomach flips. Pain, betrayal, worry, and sadness swirl in my head and heart.

Dammit, Decker, I believed in you.

I remind myself that it’s not his fault. Putting the drug of choice in front of an addict and telling them not to partake is akin to asking someone to just stop breathing. I remind myself not to blame him. If he could control his reaction to alcohol, we’d still be enemies.

If anything, I should blame Shalem for not keeping a better eye on him. I text back, “What happened!?”

“He won’t tell me and I didn’t want to press the issue. Ask him yourself. He trusts you.”

He trusts me? That hurts worse.

“And get back to me if it’s bad. I’m with Xu now, maybe he can help or at least fake a prescription.”

I put on my best face and find him tucked into a corner of the terminal like a wounded animal, curled in on himself. He looks up at me from under his hat. His eyes are watery and red. His rosacea is in full bloom: bright red against harsh white.

He was doing so well. I did my best to hide my disappointment. I don’t think it worked. He was quiet and wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

“Oh, Decker….” I pull him standing and he falls into a hug. His chest feels caved in, hollow. His fingers ball the material of my clothes. His wiry limbs squeeze me tight, trying to draw strength.

“Sorry, doll face.” He mutters. The alcohol in his breath nearly floors me, but at I don’t smell acetone or raspberries, thank God. Ketoacidosis means getting someone else involved. Central’s patience isn’t going to last forever.

“We’ll work on it together.” I promise.

He just nods and turns from me. He struggles to swallow.

“What happened?”

He struggles to speak, raising his hands. I take them, “Hey, it’s okay.”

He shakes his head.

I try to smile, “Let’s get something to eat, okay?”

“Okay…” We walk through the streets together. I try to grab his hand, but he doesn’t let me.

“Not clean.” He mutters.

I try to keep it normal, talking about anything. He nods and gives short answers. I try to keep the conversation from turning to him, his drinking problem. Was it the augment? It’s not really an augment, just a prosthetic, not even a full one.

He orders a thin soup and sips it carefully. His relapse must have been recent; his stomach is probably too irritated for normal food. He mostly fills up with water.

He takes his hat off and puts it on his lap. He runs his hand through his hair and keeps his forehead in his palm, “It’s been a bad week.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to make excuses.”

“I said we’d work on it together.”

He sighs and gulps air, “I’ve been...thinking of things. Remembering things.”

Well, that’s as clear as mud, “Thinking and remembering what?”

“My old life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I’m still drunk…”

I don’t force the issue, “Are you going to be okay?”

“For the mission? Sure. I’ve done more on worse. Might need an eye-opener, though. I-Ill start over after the mission.”

“I figured. It’s not you, you know.”

“Yes, it is. I got an addict’s brain.”

“That’s just biological. It’s not a failing on your part.”

He shifts uncomfortably.

I take his hand, “Brian, it’s okay. It’s your battle, but you don’t have to go it alone.”

“Th-thanks, doll.”

“Let’s get some sleep, okay?”

“…Okay.”

We walk back in silence. He lets me hold his hand. He’s not trembling. Not yet.

He vanishes into the bathroom to shower as soon as we get to the hotel. I dutifully stash the alcohol and lay on the bed, removing my boots.

I see his trilby sitting on the dresser. Curious, I get up and sit in the chair.

I take his trilby and put it on my head, looking at myself in the mirror. I try different angles, handing it carefully. With my hair, it actually fits my head, more or less. It’s made of felt and thus stiffer than I expected, softer too. I tilt it forward, hiding my eyes.

Decker tilts it back, off my eyebrows, “That’s a nice look for you.”

I look up, mortified. He’s got this soft smile and the light’s returned to his eyes. And now I can’t figure out what to do with my hands. Or my mouth.

He gently takes his hat and runs his shaking fingers through my hair, gently, parting it and hiding it behind my ears. A long shiver racks my spine as his nails scratch my scalp and his fingers brush against my neck. He puts his hat back on my head, tilting it.

I’m suddenly very aware of my body.

“Torchy Blaine.” He says, snapping me back to the present. The smell of alcohol on his breath actually manages to steady my nerves by reminding me of how disappointed I am in him.

“Who?”

“B-movie character played by Glenda Farrel. Torchy was a fast-talking female news reporter that solved mysteries in the late nineteen-thirties.”

His head is really close to my face as we both look in the mirror. He pulls away suddenly and lays down on the bed, beneath the covers. He’s hidden his face.

“Brian?”

“Sorry, I’m still pretty drunk.”

I put his hat on the dresser and crawl into bed with him. It just seems like proximity would make him feel better. I cautiously nestle up to his chest and he inches away.

“I’m not clean.”

“I know and it’s fine.”

“My self-control’s probably out the window and I don’t want to chalk this all up to the alcohol.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of that, pervert.”

Okay, maybe I was.

He turns onto his back, pulling me with him. He wants me to literally pin him. I hug his neck and place my head under his chin. He can’t get out of bed without waking me up like this.

“I don’t mind dying as long as it’s all at once, you know?”

“Decker, about the augment….”

“But being cut away, bit by bit? I get nightmares sometimes, of ants.”

“Ants?”

“Yeah, ants eating me away until I’m just bones. Why would anybody want that? Anyway, it’s not just about the augment. I got augments, no sense in worrying about it. It’s just….”

I squeeze his hands.

“Is that why you took the bottle back? Pain? Anxiety? ”

“No, not exactly. Sharp knows his stuff, I’ll give him that. I wasn’t in pain afterward. It’s just that Shalem’s pretty bad at keeping me out of trouble and the new augment got me to thinking and stressing myself out, again. You know how it goes. I gotta get my head quiet somehow.”

“Get your head quiet?” I suspected Decker had synesthesia; combined with his cobbled-together prosthetics, it made a unique ability to detect daemons. His explanations were always nonsense, but he was never wrong, so we just took him at his word.

“I don’t just feel pain like other people. I got all five senses involved, sometimes all at once. It usually helps me deal with it, but sometimes it’s bad enough to crowd my head and push all my thoughts out. Emotional pain works the same way; just fills my head with noise. Alcohol’s the only way I can think clearly when old wounds start acting up. Takes balance, though: not too much, not too little. But it’s damned near impossible to stop once I start.”

“What were you thinking about that made you want to drink?”

He sighs, but the alcohol keeps him talking, “I was thinking about my ex-wife. Last real relationship I was in. How it went wrong. What I did to her.”

I stay quiet. What made him think of her? Me? Is he comparing us? This is the most he’s ever spoken about her. I didn’t even know he’d been married until I’d known him for years.

He explains, “She wasn’t the best wife, she married for stability, but I was a terrible husband. When I was around, of course.”

“That’s negativity bias. You’re always so cynical.”

He shakes his head, “I was really horrible. I’d apologize, but I don’t know where she is anymore. For the best, I’m sure.”

I rub his chest and he grabs my hand to hold it still.

“I don’t remember hitting her -though I got plenty of blackouts, so who knows? - But there were times I really wanted to; threatened to often enough. She made me feel stupid. She’s a writer, you know, real intellectual type. And I don’t have much education, but I got quick wits and a bad mouth. I always knew just what to say to cut her down. Hell, I had her whittled down to nothing.”

That’s really horrible and now I’m extremely uncomfortable. I did some pretty terrible stuff in my early days, but it was always directed against an _enemy._ Not someone I was supposed to love more than myself.

He sighs, “Her new girlfriend gave her enough strength to finally tell me to go fuck myself, then sue me for divorce. I showed up to court drunk off my ass. Never seen a verdict so fast in my life; less than ten minutes and my life was over. I had to give her everything and got a no-contact order on top of it. Went on a week-long bender and woke up in the street afterward. Just goes to show you we’re all villains in someone’s story.”

I’m not sure why he’s telling me this, if it changes anything, or if it’s even true. I mean, I’ve known Decker for years; how abusive could he have possibly been? Decker could be a jerk, sure, but no worse than the other agents. He was usually _nicer_ when he was drunk.

I mean, how much could he have possibly changed from then to now?

Was it his twisted idea of penance?

All I can say is, “That was then.”

“And I got a new life, now, I know. I changed. Lost my arrogance and learned how to treat people. I learned respect.”

He hugs me tight, “Just thought you should know before this goes any farther.”

“That’s not you anymore.” I remind him. I grab his hips and squeeze. They jut out like blades in my hands; he’s a skinny guy, especially on a bender. He gasps in surprise and says my name. He’s breathing harder and that look he’s giving me is exciting, all dark and aggressive. I start kissing his lips gently, but it doesn’t last. He pulls me tight against him and kisses me hard. I’m rubbing the bones of his hips, working my thumb into his waistline. His hands brush over my curves and hug my waist.

I kiss at the corners of his lips and get a hand under his shirt. He flinches away from my fingers, so I withdraw apologetically. I try again over his shirt and he allows it, moaning softly against my lips.

I just want to make him feel better, get him out of that dark hole he’s fallen into, but this is quickly becoming something else. How long have I wanted this? I’m not sure, but I’m ecstatic it’s happening now.

His hands are everywhere, but they stay above my clothes. I’m holding his face and getting my fingers in his still-wet hair.

I can taste he was sneaking liquor in the bathroom. Was the last thing he had bourbon? I taste a distinct sweetness, vanilla or maple, with a peppery bite. There’s a soft, bitter, smoky flavor to his lips.

I don’t even mind tasting the alcohol, maybe it was giving him courage. It’s that very thought that makes me pull away. He’s not thinking clearly; he’s definitely still drunk.

I sit up, gasping and somehow sitting on his hips. He lets go of my waist.

“No, Brian, you’ve been drinking….” I get off of him and lay at his side. When did I get on top of him in the first place?

He sighs either in disappointment or relief; I’m not sure which. He tries to subtlety tuck himself into his waistband. I ignore it.

“I’m sorry…” I try to explain, “I didn’t mean to take it that far….”

“It’s fine. I’m too chicken-shit to make moves, anyway.” He explains, staring at the lamp.

I take his hand and lace our fingers, “After everything you’ve been through, you should be cautious.”

He rolls over so that we’re facing each other, “I wouldn’t be any good, anyway.”

I touch my lips, “You’re a pretty good kisser.”

He smiles slightly, looking down.

I glance at his arm; Sharp was good. Call it work ethic. I can hardly tell the synthetic from the natural; the color is spot on and the texture is almost identical. Faint white scars mark where one ended and the other began. Now that I know to look, I can sort of see what got replaced from the faint scars all over his exposed skin. I want to trace them, but I restrain myself.

He catches my eye and rubs his arm self-consciously.

“Sorry….”

“It’s okay.”

“You really can’t tell.”

“It’s fine…” He kisses my eyes gently, stroking the base of my neck. I shiver and arch my back.

“Sorry. Didn’t know you were sensitive there.”

I didn’t know either. Chalk it up to selfish past flames.

The temptation is pretty damned strong. He’s right there and willing enough not to stop me. But taking advantage of him while he’s drunk isn’t something I’m willing to stoop to. We both deserve better.

“Let’s get some sleep.” I hug him tight and lay my head against his chest. He holds tight to me.

Eventually the fiery passion smolders into a warm hearth. I think I like this better. I haven’t lived anywhere permanently since Havana was annexed, but I sort of got something close when I was with Decker. I didn’t want that to change.

“I know who I am with you. I just wish it as someone better.” He says.

"You’re trying, Brian. That’s what counts. You’re not one of them. Not anymore.” I kiss his chin, “You sound like a completely new person, now.”

He just squeezes my back, “Maybe it was the capitalism corrupting my soul.”

 I smile, “I’ve been saying that for years.”

 “Nobody ever worried about me. I always thought it was because I had it together. Now I think it was because my success, being district manager in my twenties, made people way too happy to see me fall.”

 “All the better for us, then.” I hug his neck.

 “All the better for me, too.” He kisses the top of my head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back, tipped hat at askanse.

 

We set a date for one of the few times our days off line up; we get two days together. Prism was probably more excited than I was; I was thinking of all the ways it could go wrong. I hadn’t really been on a date since…ever, really. Also, she loved the idea of dressing me up.

 

It feels much too generous to be mere serendipity, but who could really read Central anyway?

 

Prism picked a green dress out for me because, in her words, “it goes with your red hair and brings out your eyes.” It was a pencil dress, sort of vintage, because she thought Decker would appreciate something ‘vintage, kind of jazzy’.  She found kitten heels to match, correctly guessing I wouldn’t be able to walk in full heels.

 

Of course, I’m nervous. My idea of a nice night out with Decker was a nice night _in;_ reading books, listening to records, maybe arguing about economics and the best forms of government…something like that. He always found interesting stuff we could talk about.

 

He suggested a museum, noting that I should probably find a hobby before I burn myself out on revolution.

 

As if I could ever do that.

 

I find him first, as usual, in the airport in Belgrade. He prefers to sit down somewhere and let me find him, because he’s easier to spot in a crowd. He’s outside the bar, looking wistfully at the drinks and clenching his fists. I can see his mouth drawn into a thin line.

 

He swallows and tries to look away, but I know how alcohol talks to him, promising he’ll be able to stop after a few, that he needs it to steady his nerves, and that nobody will notice. He knows it lies, but I can see him starting to believe.  Alcohol can always talk him into believing. And it probably always will.

 

Panic flutters in my chest and I know I don’t have a moment to spare, so I call out to him by his first name.

 

He snaps his head toward me, startled, and gets up to see me, relieved. He looks stunned and he stops short, then takes a small step back with a “wow!”

 

He laughs nervously, looking away with a big smile I had never seen before. He rubs the back of his neck.

 

He struggles to speak, “Y-You look….”

 

He laughs nervously. His reaction has me blushing and fidgeting, “Do you like it?”

 

I had done my makeup in the airport bathroom, hoping I did it right.

 

He grabs my shoulders, staring, “Y-yeah…”

 

He swallows, looking away. His eyes are glassy. I gently grab his elbows. He pulls away. There isn’t a trace of alcohol on him.

 

“I got us a cab,” he said, taking my hand, “I found a museum I think you’ll like. I’m surprised it’s still up; all things considered. This place was really anti-corps back in the day, so I’m guessing they pitch a fit whenever anybody thinks of knocking it down.”

 

“What kind of museum is it?”

 

“The Yugoslav National Museum.”

 

A _national_ museum? Still open? Decker always had a knack for finding the most interesting stuff.

 

Decker’s not a socialist, but he found someone that could bridge the vast gulf between our respective ideologies. Once again, I don’t partake of the opiate of the masses, but I thanked Josip Brotz Tito for bringing us together ninety-four years after his death.

 

We go to see the exhibit ‘Design for a New World’, a showcase of graphic design in the Yugoslav state and slip in with the English-speaking crowd.

 

The exhibit is dominated with posters, likely due to their size and visual impact. In one, a young teenager stood proudly in his working uniform, opening across the chest to reveal a Superman costume underneath.

 

I can see Decker eying the military history exhibit, but he sticks close to me.

 

We find an English-speaking guide and try to blend in with the tourists. Mostly K&O types, though most of those were looking at the military gear the next room over. Decker keeps his collar popped and his head down.

 

“You can’t talk about Yugoslavia without talking about Josef Brotz Tito, a man who famously said to Stalin himself, ‘You’d better stop sending killers after me or I’ll send one myself. And I won’t have to send a second.’”

 

Okay, well, that’s more or less what he said. I try to forgive the guy because he’s going off of memory.

 

I _know to_ brace myself for the corporate propaganda; I expect them to accuse Tito of being a tyrant and play up his flaws.  There _had_ to be a reason why this place was still up and I wouldn’t recognize Havana, no, Cuba, anymore.

 

Then again, Belgrade wasn’t the tropical paradise my home was. This area was known for intimidating black mountains, cold water, and harsh winters. The corporations used this place for the ancient mines.

 

I clench my fists. They left this museum alone because they didn’t want it for themselves. I’m not sure which is worse. I feel myself get homesick for the first time in years.

 

“ _¿Estás bien?”_ Decker asks. I can see him having doubts about this date.

 

I nod. I’m never sure how fluent he is in Spanish, but I’m guessing not very. Learning, but still not quite there.

 

“Just a little homesick, is all.”  

 

He takes my hand and starts massaging my fingers to get me to unclench. I grab his hand instead, squeezing.

 

“Why do we let them keep this place?” A woman asks. She’s wearing a dress worth more than the building this exhibit was in and probably all the artifacts.

 

“Their culture has some useful aspects;” a man, presumably her husband, says, “look around, see all this shit about hard work and reaping rewards? We can use that.”

 

“That bit about nationalism being the fall of Yugoslavia was a stroke of genius.”

 

“I thought you’d like that.”

 

Decker squeezes my hand harder and kept his forearm wrapped around mine, as if he thought to restrain me from giving those two what they deserved.

 

The guide speaks, “Josip Brotz Tito was a capitalist president in a communist country, surrounded on nearly all sides by puppets of Stalin.”

 

 _Excuse me?!_ My head snapped to the tour guide.

 

Decker and I look at each other. The couple I had overheard give us sharp, suspicious looks. They know we know. Decker got close to me, feet inching apart, hands in his pockets, just in case.

 

“ _Relaje,”_ he mutters. How the hell could I relax in here?!

 

“Risking the wraith of Joseph Stalin himself, he defied the communists and brought critical capitalist ideas to Yugoslavia such as the concept of personal property, consumerism, and hard work. As a result, Yugoslavia flourished while pure Communist governments starved and overworked their people.”

 

That wasn’t true at all and I start to shake with anger. But I am in the middle of corporate people and I can’t blow my cover.

 

“The Yugoslavs loved him so much for this, they made him President for Life of Yugoslavia. He continued to maintain the disguise of communism as to not start a war with the USSR throughout his life, but managed to subvert it by allying himself with strong capitalists and allowing his people to travel to other capitalist countries for work.”

 

I want to scream. I liked seeing all these relics, but these _lies_ are infuriating.

 

“Hold the fuck up.” Decker snaps and I can breathe again, “No capitalist ever got their system by subverting another; capitalists come at economic systems like a damned hammer. We’re not known for our subtlety. Second, Tito was never a fucking Capitalist, he was as red as Stalin. He hated Stalin because Uncle Joe kept trying to keep the other Communist countries under his thumb and Tito wouldn’t let him control Yugoslavia, which, being ethnically Slav, was pretty much a slap in the face to the Russians, who felt they were better that their southern cousins.”

 

Everyone is staring at Decker, including myself. I’m not as sharp on other countries as I am with Russian and my own.

 

And he wasn’t done, “Tito managed to stay out from under Stalin by taking the third option and aligning himself with the so-called ‘third-world countries’, that is, the countries not aligned with NATO or the Soviets; countries like India, Iran, Ethiopia, Indonesia, places like that. And it fucking worked. By staying non-aligned, he was able to maintain diplomatic relations with pretty much everyone.”

 

You could hear a pin drop in there. Everyone is staring at him. I pray nobody recognizes us.

 

The guide tried to fight back, “Then why did he allow private enterprise?”

 

“Small businesses and factories only, you dolt. The state still controlled middle and upper management; still paid all utilities and medical expenses, and everything was still run under a communist, one-party system. The reason he allowed that and freedom of movement abroad was because of the high amount of seasonal workers in Yugoslavia, which means sending money back home.”

 

He looks different, stronger, when he’s fighting and knows he’s right. And now, once again and the first time ever, he’s on my side.  
  
“Titoism isn’t capitalism disguised as communism, it’s communism tailored to the individual conditions of that particular country rather than set patterns based on another country. Because that’s what Titoism is all about. He was anti-Stalinist, but he was _always a communist!”_

 

I’m impressed; Decker had been doing his homework.

 

The guide gave him a curious, though nervous look. He didn’t know what to make of Decker. He probably thought he was crazy. I think he’s a little crazy, too, but in a good way. The guide asks, “what on Earth have you been reading?”

 

“History books published _before_ 2060.”

 

Someone in the crowd asks, “Are those even _legal?”_

 

Decker doesn’t take his eyes off the guide and he suddenly looks like the CSO of a major corporation, “probably not.”

 

A guard appeared from out of nowhere and taps Decker on the shoulder, “That’s nice, buddy. Time to go.”

 

He shoots the guard a hard stare, “Yeah, sure.”

 

The guard roughly grabs him around the arm and practically drags him to the entrance. He shoves him out the door, causing Decker to whirl around and adjust his hat.

 

I stand beside him, staring the guard down, “You know none of that was true. If you’re only lying about your own past to prevent yourself from ending up like Havana, it’s not going to work. Once your history ceases to be useful to them, it’ll get burned just like ours did.”

 

The guard’s eyes narrow and glitter. He tips his hat, “We slavs do not die; we’ve had worse than K&O and we’ll be here long after they’re gone. Have a good evening, comrade.”

 

“Well, that was a bust.” Decker growled as he walked down the steps. I grab his elbow and lace our arms together, “I was kind of hoping to see the House of Flowers and actually meet the guy.”

 

“That was _fun_. Where’d you learn all that?”

 

“I told you; I got some textbooks from the turn of the century. Tito’s got some good shit. …Still had all the secret police and gulags that Uncle Joe did, but hey, nobody’s perfect, right?”

 

“You guys had Guantanamo Bay,” I remind him with a smile. One more thing in the long, complicated history between our people.

 

He smiles back, “when are you going to get over that?”

 

I tap his shoulder, “So, where to, next?”

 

“Dunno. I really only know bars around here.”

 

We’re in a very rich neighborhood, Dedinje, and I know we don’t belong. Sankaku, FTM, and Plastech all had regional offices and their liaisons had their homes here.

 

“There’s Hyde Park. We could escape into there.”

 

“I think they still got real trees there. Let’s check it out.”

 

It was kind of a long walk, but I didn’t mind.  The trees aren’t real here, to our disappointment, but very clever fakes. There were even fake leaves on the ground for affect. There was no wildlife, just long stretches of flat dirt in the midst of a canopy of fake shade-trees.

 

“…Why’d you jump in like that?” I finally ask.

 

“Why not? They were wrong.”

 

“You almost ended up a gulag yourself.”

 

“That’s never stopped you.”

 

“That’s me, though. Why did _you_ jump in?”

 

“…They were upsetting you. I know how much this means to you and I _fucking hate it_ when people get history wrong. I didn’t make the connection before, but these people got to keep their museum and you got nothing to remember Cuba. Didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

 

“Their history is in corps hands’ now, used only as a weapon against the people. I think I’d rather burn it all down than to let them have a scrap of my country.”

 

“Heh, looks like we can still salvage this date, then.” He flicks his lighter thoughtfully.

 

“ _Not like that!”_ I bump him with my shoulder, laughing, “Comrade Tito doesn’t deserve to have his final resting place defaced after what he’s done to bring us together. Besides, we don’t need to salvage anything. This is nice.”

 

We come to a break in the not-trees to find grass. Curious, Decker grabs at it and pulls a bit up. He sniffs carefully, “Hey, this is real.”

 

I’m so unused to the smell of vegetation I can smell it from here. It’s absolutely real grass, completely irregular in length and spacing. It takes me a moment to realize that we’re pretty far into the park, close to the center. Decker turns the blade around in his hand thoughtfully, “nature must be starting to reclaim this place. I guess the corps isn’t paying much attention to area beautification.”

 

This must be where the corps stopped caring, so few people came this deep into the park.

 

“I think there’s an old sycamore here,” I remarked, “It was planted a long, long time ago by a prince or someone.”

 

There’s hope in his voice, “Trees live forever, maybe it’s still alive.”

 

We step off the path and into the grass. I want to remove my shoes to walk in it, but I settle for feeling it against my legs. We pass ruined monuments. The statues had been stolen and melted down a long time ago, leaving only the cement pedestals. Graffiti covers nearly every centimeter of the monuments. I wish I knew what they said.

 

We stop at a wall that had wailing heads carved into the stone. Decker asks, “Do you know what a sycamore even looks like?”

 

“No, do you?”

 

“Heh, no.”

 

We sit down at a rusted park bench to watch the sun set. I grab his hand and he squeezes mine. His thumb thoughtfully strokes my fingers. I lay my head on his shoulder and we watch the grass sway in the breeze.

 

He even asks permission for a cigarette before he lights up.

 

“So,” I ask, staring at the smoke, “about Titoism.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“If you want to meet me halfway on it, tell me about it.”

 

Decker squeezes my hand, “If I’m going to talk about communism in Yugoslavia, I’ll need to go back to the Ottoman Empire….”

 

We start walking while he talks. I’ve never had anyone take interests in _my_ interests before, and certainly not just because I had them. He teaches history like he’s telling a story. He glosses over most of the Ottoman Empire so he could get to the parts we really cared about: Tito’s conversion to Communism and the second World War. 

 

“…Tito’s partisans would conduct hit-and-run tactics against the Axis, then go hide in the mountains of Montenegro, where they couldn’t be followed because of the rough terrain. The Montegrins would cover for them and hide them. Later, when Tito had all of Yugoslavia, he never forgot their help. And he never forgot that Albania and the Albanians sided with the Italians, that is, the _Axis…._ ”

 

“Nothing really changes, huh? I was doing the same thing.”

 

“Really? In Cuba?”

 

I smile, “Yeah, Cuba has lots of mountains-” “-yeah, ‘Message to Garcia’ _…-_ “ “ I used to hide out in the Guaniguanico mountains. I wish I could show you what it used to look like. They tried to use artillery to root us out, but…they couldn’t reach that deep into the mountains.”

 

“Pictures wouldn’t compare to the real thing, I bet.”

 

“No…it wouldn’t.” He squeezes my hand and stops. I take a step before I stop, too. He points ahead of us, smiling.

 

And there it is. The sycamore tree.

 

I can’t believe I thought those fake trees were clever simulations of the real thing; they didn’t look anything like this. The difference was night and day. The artificial trees were thinner and regular in their pattern, determined by a fractal algorithm. This tree had a thick silvery trunk and wide branches that spread out like rivers. Its leaves were large and heart-shaped.

 

It was enormous; the trunk is so thick I don’t think I can put my arms around it. How many governments had it seen? How many wars? We stand under it and I put my hand to its silvery, smooth trunk.

 

He says, smiling, “b-but enough about Yugoslavia….”

 

He takes my face in his hand and pulls me to him. I get my arms around his waist. I’m used to the bitterness on his lips, the smoke in his hair. His hand moves from my cheek to the back of my neck, gently stroking behind my ear. My tongue moves across his lip, and flicks the corners of his mouth. He lets out a shaking gasp and pulls the small of my back closer, flush against him. Our tongues meet, light and brief. I try to press him even closer.

 

For a long while, it’s just our breath and the wind moving through the grass and leaves. We’re both quiet and shivering. I grab the belt of his trenchcoat and push him into the tree. We settle on the ground and one of my hands falls to his hipbones. He’s breathing harder, now; his eyes are black and shiny.

 

He’s sitting on the ground with his back against the tree, and I’m leaning on him, careful not to let Prism’s dress touch the dirt by keeping myself within his coat. He kisses me again, harder and deeper, with one hand in my hair and the other propping me up, behind my back.

 

I curl my fingers into the base of his skull and knead in, holding him into hungry, searching kisses. He feels warm everywhere while I feel the cooling breeze of the oncoming night air. But wherever I find Decker’s skin, it feels so warm I can’t think.

 

I get his coat open to feel his hipbones, his stomach, and his chest. He contents himself with running his fingers up my curves, feeling the texture of the dress. He pulls away to get his face in my neck and I might’ve made a little panicked sound, because he stops to look me in the eyes.

 

I smile at him, “go ahead.”

 

His kisses down my neck send a hot flare all through me and my fingers clenched around his coat. I stare up at the sky, where all the branches cut black rivers through the sky.

 

He stops at my shoulder, sucking gently to avoid leaving a mark, and pulls away hesitantly. I settle into his chest and we both stare up at the deepening twilight.

 

“Where to?” He asks, “we can’t stay here all night.”

 

“You got us a hotel, right?”

 

He blushes even deeper, “Well, yeah, but that’s…we always do that.”

 

I kiss his temple, “Why don’t we settle in for the night?”

 

“We got tomorrow to see the rest of the city;” Decker considers, “we can _try_ to make less of a scene.”

 

“You capitalists aren’t known for your subtlety.”

 

“And you communists aren’t known for your half-measures.”


End file.
